Recently, Lilly released the latest clinical data for Jardiance, a type 2 diabetes drug: Jardiance significantly reduces the risk of cardiovascular death and kidney disease in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus and peripheral arterial disease compared with placebo. The findings of this study have been published in Circulation, the top journal in the cardiovascular field, with the article entitled "Empagliflozin and Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes, Established Cardiovascular Disease and Chronic Kidney Disease."

Diabetes is a chronic disease. According to the data from World Health Organization, in 2015, diabetes was estimated to directly cause 1.6 million deaths. Type 2 diabetes is like a house of cards. Poor management can lead to overall collapse of the patient's health and is a source of heart attacks, kidney failure, vision problems and nerve damage. Among them, peripheral arterial disease is one of the most common cardiovascular complications associated with type 2 diabetes, which increases the risk of cardiovascular death. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a therapeutic regimen that can reduce the cardiovascular risk in patients with type 2 diabetes and peripheral arterial disease.

Jardiance, a once-daily tablet, was developed by the Boehringer Ingelheim-Lilly Alliance for Diabetes and approved by the EC in May 2014 and approved by the FDA in August of the same year for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Jardiance belongs to the sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors. Its main pharmacological mechanism is to reduce tubular reabsorption of glucose by inhibiting SGLT-2, which is responsible for glucose reabsorption in the renal tubules, more glucose is excreted from the urine, so as to achieve the effect of lowering blood sugar levels. It not only can be used alone, but also with other hypoglycemic agents, including insulin, metformin, DPP-4 inhibitors.

The cardiovascular data, derived from a clinical trial called EMPA-REG, is a long-term, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of more than 7,000 type 2 diabetes and defined cardiovascular disease in 42 countries. The study assessed the effect of Jardiance added to standard of care compared with placebo added to standard of care. The primary endpoint was defined as time to first occurrence of cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attack or non-fatal stroke. The data shows that Jardiance reduces the risk of cardiovascular and kidney disease: a 43% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular death, a 44% reduction in the risk of hospitalization for heart failure, and a 16% reduction in the combined risk of cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attack or non-fatal stroke, new or worse kidney disease decreased by 46%.

This undoubtedly brings a great good news for the majority of patients with type 2 diabetes. However, it should be noted that Jardiance also has some side effects such as dehydration, ketoacidosis and severe urinary tract infection. Therefore, strict compliance with the doctor's instructions and regular monitoring should be taken during the treatment so as to promptly handle the abnormalities.